Jewelled Tears
by Elizabeth C
Summary: The final battle is over, and Harry must do something terrible.


Jewelled Tears

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and/or situations created and owned by Joanne Kathleen Rowling, various publishers (including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books and Scholastic Books), and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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It was over. Harry looked around him. 

The Quidditch pitch was strewn with lifeless bodies. Some were unmarked; they could have been sleeping, not dead. Most, however, were broken and bloody. The intense battle had quickly drained both sides of their magical abilities, and wands had been cast aside in favour of daggers and swords. A few had abandoned all but their pure rage, attacking the Death Eaters with their bare hands. Here and there wizards and witches lay softly moaning, still alive, but Harry ignored them. He could do nothing for them, and he knew it. 

He walked slowly. Godric Gryffindors sword dangled limply from his right hand, his left rested on a jewelled dagger hanging at his side. His battle robes were torn and bloody. There was a dull ache in his forehead; when he brushed his fingers over his scar, they came away glistening red. In the last hour, his scar had started bleeding a little. Savagely, he wiped it away, taking a perverse pleasure in the blinding pain it caused him. It was easier to concentrate on that than on the task which lay ahead of him.

__

Ron.

Harry reached his best friend. His _first_ friend. In a second, the last seven years flashed before him. He let the sword slip out of his hand. He sank to his knees.

'Hey.'

'Harry…'

'Shh. It's okay. It's over.'

Ron's eyes were unfocused. His hair was Weasley red no longer, instead it had been burnt as black as Harry's from the fierce fire which had so nearly consumed him. His skin was a raw, shiny red and blistering; his robes all but burnt away. Despite his horrendous burns, he was shivering, and as cold as ice as Harry pulled him roughly to his feet. 

'No, Harry, let me sit - '

'Shut up!' Harry viciously embraced Ron, who cried out in pain. 'It's better this way.'

'What way? I don't understand – Harry, please let me - '

'No.' Harry's voice was gravelly. He felt the cold seep into his bones, into his veins. Into his heart. A hot tear slipped down his cheek. It landed on the still warm silver of his dagger; it hissed and spat. And then, still holding close his dearest friend, Harry plunged that dagger into Rons side.

'HARRY! _NO!'_

But Hermione was too late. Screaming and crying, blinded by her terror and tears, she stumbled through the bodies of friends and foes. With strength born of pure desperation, she wrenched Ron out of Harry**'**s arms and sank with him to the ground, cradling his head in her lap.

'…Ron?' she whispered.

His eyelids fluttered. His lips moved, but incomprehensibly. And then, with a small sigh, Ron Weasley died. 

Grief filled Hermione, but it bubbled to her lips as anger. As gently as she could, as if Ron was made of the most delicate glass, she laid him on the ground. Then she slowly stood to face Harry.

__

'Why?' she shrieked, and without waiting for an answer she hurled herself at him, beating her small fists against his chest. She screamed obscenities at him she didn't even know she knew, her whole being centred on causing as much pain to Harry as she possibly could, no matter that he was her friend and that she loved him. 

Harry didn't fight back. Instead, he seized her and crushed her in the most powerful embrace he could. Not understanding, Hermione ceased her attack. She gasped and choked, and then she was still. She stepped back from Harry, and looked uncertainly up into the face of the boy, of the man who was her other half. He gazed back down at her, at the small scared face of the woman he loved so dearly. 

'Look at him, Herm,' he whispered, 'he wouldn't have lived. The burns - '

'He might have, Harry, you don't know - ' 

'No. _Look_, Hermione. Look at him.'

Hermione felt as though her heart was going to burst. She couldn't look at Ron, simply couldn't. It was too much, Harry was asking too much of her. Hadn't she, hadn't both of them been through enough? She shut her eyes tightly, willing it all to go away, willing it to be nothing more than a nightmare. Ron wasn't dead, Harry hadn't killed him. _Ron wasn't dead, Harry hadn't killed him, Ron wasn't dead, Harry hadn't killed himRonwasn'tdeadHarryhadn'tkilledhim - when I open my eyes I'll be safe in my dormitory…_ _safe in my dormitory…_

'Hermione!'Harry shouted, suddenly scared at the look on her face. He'd already lost one of his best friends – _you mean killed, don't you? _whispered a voice in his head, _because you know you killed Ron. Stuck that fancy dagger of yours right into him. Felt his blood flow out of that death wound you gave him. It's on your hands – literally. _

Feeling as though he was about to shatter into a million pieces, Harry screamed 'Hermione, _help me!_'' 

_…safe in my dormitory…but then what's that noise? _Harry's hysterical screaming had penetrated through the fog in Hermiones mind. She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Ron. He was lying dead on the ground, eyes open, the ground stained red beneath him. She looked at him for a long moment, a moment which encompassed everything they had ever said and not said to each other. Eternity passed for Hermione in that moment. When she looked up at Harry, it was the soul of a much older woman that gazed at him out of her seventeen-year-old eyes.

She stepped forward, and placed two fingers across his lips. 

'Shh. It's okay. It's over.' She cupped his face in her hands; then slipped them around his neck, pulling him to her. They melted against each other, and then to the ground. Now the pure tears of grief came. For a long time, they lay there, sobbing into each other. They cried for Ron, for the unfairness of his death, for all that he missed out on. But more than anything, they cried for each other.

Much later, their eyes were dry, but still they lay there. Hermione slept, Harrys arms around her. He buried his face in her hair, and breathed deeply. Then he sat up, and gently shook her awake.

'Time to go,' he whispered. She nodded; then turned and pressed her lips to Harry's scar. 


End file.
